Nomading - Busselton Margaret River and Hamelin Bay - 20 - 26 September 2021

We drove from Perth to Busselton today, a two and a half hour drive mostly along freeways and highways, it wasn't too strenuous at all and we arrived in good time at Busselton. We set up and drove into the Information Centre at the Jetty before picking up a few items we needed for lunch and returning to the van. We hadn't realised how much there was to do around Busselton and the surrounding coastline but it soon became obvious we would need more time to have a good look around. When we checked into the caravan park we added another night to our stay, we couldn't add any more because it is a long weekend coming up and they are booked out. I spent a good deal of the afternoon trying to find other accommodation in the surrounding area and luckily managed to find two nights at Hamelin Bay. School holidays commence from Friday in Western Australia so I gather we will be struggling with accommodation for the next couple of weeks, never mind we will do whatever we have to do for this very short time. With the information I had picked up at the Visitor Centre I planned our next few days exploring around Busselton and the beach areas around here, we will leave our exploration of Margaret River until we are based at Hamelin Bay so that we can maximise our time in Busselton.

We started our exploring today with a trip in the little red train along the length of the Busselton Jetty. This jetty is 1.841Kms long and it is the longest wood piled jetty in the Southern Hemisphere. The train ride was fun and stopped just short of the end, we had 8 minutes at the top to hop out and walk to the end before hopping back on the train to drive back to the start. There is an Underwater Observatory at the end of the Jetty which you can include in your train ride tour but we didn't know about it until we were there, we had been running late for the train so I didn't ask any details I just very quickly purchased our tickets and jumped on the train. Once we were finished at the Jetty our next stop was Dunsborough, the next good sized town along the coast, where we had a quick look around before moving onto Castle Rock and Meelup Beach, the whole coastline along here is very pretty and Whales migrate through here from South to North between September to November so we were hoping we might see them out there today, we didn't have any luck here so we moved onto Point Picquet where we were told you can always spot them but still no luck. We pulled into a few of the lookouts on the way to Eagle Bay still searching for whales. Our last stop for the day was to be Cape Naturaliste Light House which is still operating. There are three cottages and many smaller buildings at the base of the light house all belonging to the complex, we had a wander around the cottages and then walked the short uphill distance to the light house itself. After a look around we walked over to the look out and we were told whales had been spotted out there today and we thought we might have seen where they were but I really wanted to see one breaching so that I could say we really had seen them, we are thinking of doing a whale watching cruise. We drove back to camp from here as we still hadn't had lunch and it was going to be 3.00pm before we arrived home.

Our plan today was to visit Ngigli Cave, there are about 4-5 caves in this immediate area so we chose one to explore. We arrived at the cave and went to enquire about looking through, we were hoping to do a self guided tour but we were told we couldn't do that. We arrived around 10.30am and we were told the next tour left at 11.00am so we booked in for this time. As it worked out it was sort of a self guided tour, the guide gave us a talk about the history of the cave when he met us at the meeting area and then he took us down into the cave explaining the precautions we would need to take and explaining where we could go in the caves and then he showed us the stairs we could take down to various openings. We decided to take the stairs to the amphitheater first as it was the easiest place to get to but still down a few flights of narrow stairs. The amphitheater has a bit of a history with singers recording down here and they can even boast of Dame Nellie Melba singing here. We wandered around the cave for awhile checking out all the various tunnels, Robb had his torch with him and then we climbed back up to the entry to the deepest part of the cave. We probably walked down a quarter of the way, there are 360 steps to the bottom, we thought we weren't going to see anything different by going all the way down so we returned to the top platform and them climbed the stairs to exit the cave. From here we drove back to the Visitor Centre in Busselton to enquire about booking in for a whale watching tour tomorrow. We booked into the 10.00am tour and I am really looking forward to it. After our exertion at the caves we decided we needed a beer at the brewery opposite the Visitor Centre, we found a table at Shelter and I went in to order a Pale Ale for Robb and a Lager for me and we sat outside watching the activity on the jetty before returning to the van.

We had to meet the boat for our Whale Watching tour at Geographe Marina, we arrived in plenty of time so we sat and finished off our coffees before boarding. I had high hopes for today as I have really wanted to see whales in the wild and the few opportunities I have had in the past haven't worked out too well. We asked the guide how they spotted the whales thinking they may have used sonar or something but they just spot them and can see them up to 4 kms away apparently. After spending the couple of hours out there we all became quite good at spotting them in the distance and someone was always calling out, 'Over There' and we would all run to that side of the boat to see them. We had a great time and I took lots of photos, I think we saw about 20-30 whales, however, I just missed seeing one that breached which I was really hoping to see but I did see quite a few tales as they dived back into the water. On the way out to sea we had a dolphin swimming beside the boat and coming back in we saw penguins up on the rocks on the channel. We had a great time and I am happy to finally have seen the whales. There was another boat that went out the same time we did and the drivers were sharing information with each other about where the whales were but at one time it looked like the other boat had caught on fire, it had a lot of smoke coming out the back apparently it had some problems with part of the engine and because of that couldn't move at any sort of speed, it would have been a slow trip back to the marina for them.

When we first planned to visit Busselton, we also planned to visit the Margaret River region but when we saw how much there was to do around Busselton we knew we wouldn’t have the time we needed. We couldn’t extend our time at the Busselton Caravan Park because it is the long weekend coming up and directly after that it is school holidays and they are completely booked out. I started calling around to find availability at a park within this area where we could access Margaret River, the only availability I could find is at Hamelin Bay Holiday Park and that was a bit of a squeeze, we couldn’t get three nights the best they could do was to offer us two nights so we took up their offer. After I had booked and paid, they informed me that apart from the fact they are on bore water, which means we need to bring our own water for drinking, there is no access to television or internet in the area. The bore water we could handle we always travel with a slab of water in the back of the car but not having the internet makes us tremble and then on top of that no TV reception, crikey that is just primitive, thank heavens we could only get two nights here. We have been consoling each other all the way here and keep saying it is only for two nights, we can do that. Anyway, the park is very pretty, it sits as the name suggests on Hamelin Bay and the park itself is covered in trees, our site was not very easy to back into because of the number of trees and the sites are very narrow. We finally managed to get the van in, not straight but we also needed to be able to unhook the van which needed to be straight on the car so we compromised and are still on a slight angle, that’s ok we are in our site boundaries and it is only two nights. We set up, we haven’t bothered about putting the awning down as there seem to be a lot of mosquitoes in the area, we won’t be sitting outside tonight. Our original intention was to set up, have lunch, and then drive back to Margaret River Dairy Company to check out their cheeses but Robb suggested after setting up that we go out somewhere for lunch and I thought that was a great idea. When we could we put in the address for the Dairy Company and headed straight there as this was our furthest destination. We arrived in good time, parked, and walked inside. We thought there might have been more people there but it was very quiet and the girl who served us even commented how quiet it was, maybe everyone is settling in today and will be out and about on the weekend. We thought we might have had a cheese platter there for lunch but we could not see any advertised so after doing a small tasting we chose to purchase a cheese pack to take home for dinner tonight. When we were back in the car, we thought our priority should be to find somewhere for lunch and we saw the sign to Cowaramup Brewing Company and thought we would investigate here to see if they were also a restaurant and thankfully, they were, we were getting hungry by now. We found a table and took the food and drink menu with us, we checked with the girl on duty to find out what size the pizzas were because we have been caught out before, they looked ok so we ordered a shared Cowaramup Special Pizza and the Lamb Croquettes and we both chose to try their own brand Pilsener. Our next stop even though we both knew it probably shouldn’t be was at Millers Ice Cream. I wouldn’t normally recommended anyone eating ice cream after drinking beer but we were in the area and just couldn’t pass it by. There is a lovely outdoor area here and we sat under a sheltered table and benches and finished off our very tasty treat. We drove back to camp from here and both spent the rest of the afternoon in a food coma. Thankfully we purchased the cheese so we can wait until later tonight before eating dinner and there won’t be a lot of preparation. Later on, tonight I will plan our day for tomorrow, it is a long time since we have visited the Margaret River region and I would like to see as much as we can in our short time here.

We hadn’t had a chance yet to check out Hamelin Bay and made that our first destination for the day. We drove up to the boat ramp and beach access and parked the car. We walked over to take a better look at the beach area. There were a few people down there when we arrived, not swimming but sitting around. There is what looks like the remains of an old jetty reaching out a fair way into the water and the bay looks quite peaceful, except for the notices around that stingray are in the area and just to be careful you don’t step on one. There are a few walks that take off from here and there were a few people on the tracks. We then drove onto Augusta, or as the WA’s pronounce it Agusta. This is a good-sized town and seems to be positioned on a river, an inlet and the ocean, we had a bit of a look around before proceeding onto Cape Leeuwin Light House. We hadn’t intended to have a look at the light house but when we saw it was so close, we thought we may as well continue. The light house and buildings connected to it cover quite a large area, apart from the light keeper’s house there are another two and originally there were three but the last one has been demolished. The Interpretive centre that is located at the old Light Keeper’s house is very interesting and well worth a visit. There are quite a few smaller buildings that we would have liked to know what they were originally used for but we couldn’t find any notice boards to help us out. This is a very windy area and I was glad to be back in the car and heading down the coast. Our next stop was at Skippy Rocks an amazing group of rock formations on the coast, I walked out about halfway and would have liked to go further but I had taken the photos I wanted so headed back to the car. Before we left the rocks, we had a look around the historic water wheel that was originally used to send water up for the construction of the light house and later to service the needs of the light house, it was an interesting bit of engineering but is now covered in limescale. We then drove to our next destination Margaret River, before we came here, I didn’t realise there was a town of this name I thought it referred to the general wine making area, so it was interesting to drive through and look. Apparently, they have just completed redoing the main street and it looked pretty good to us, after a bit of a look around we found ourselves at the Old Margaret River Settlement where we had a quick look around. From here we drove onto Witchcliffe for lunch at the bakery where we sat in the alfresco area and enjoyed our pies. We decided to drive on home from here but we were hoping to stop at one winery to do a tasting on our way home. We chose the first one we came to which was Arlewood Winery and as it turned out it was a lovely experience for us. The young woman who greeted us was one of four people who managed this winery and she was very passionate about their produce. She took us through a full tasting of their wines and we had a lovely visit with her talking about our travels and local issues. We purchased one of the wines I liked best before leaving and then we were on our way. All up we have had an excellent day.